America Impoverished: Census data shows Americans falling in and out of poverty

It’s pretty fair to say the United States economy is in shambles: a massive national debt, tens of trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities and expenditures, a stock market that jitters on talk of Federal Reserve QE tapering and a president that believes the cure to all of the nation’s problems is more government.

According to new data, the people are beginning to suffer. A recent report from the Census Bureau found that nearly one-third (31.6 percent) of Americans fell into poverty for at least two months between the years 2009 and 2011, compared to more than one-quarter (27.1 percent) between 2005 and 2007.

The data suggests that only about one-quarter were impoverished during the entire two-year time span, while more than one-third (35.4 percent) who were poor in 2009 were not living in poverty in 2011.

In the end, officials argue that the economy wields a lot of people entering and exiting poverty. The Census Bureau lists someone as being poor if they earn an annual salary of less than $11,720.

What’s the cause of the issue? Not enough of jobs and too many jobs that pay employees “poverty-level wages.” It’s expected to get worse with Obamacare as companies reduce their staffing levels, cut hours and refrain expanding their workforce. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will cut work hours equivalent of two million jobs.

The CBO said the worst begins in 2017, a time when President Obama’s healthcare law is well under way – it did warn, though, that declines in work hours are still expected to transpire between now and then.

“Over the longer run, CBO finds that because of this law, individuals will be empowered to make choices about their own lives and livelihoods, like retiring on time rather than working into their elderly years or choosing to spend more time with their families,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. “At the beginning of this year, we noted that as part of this new day in health care, Americans would no longer be trapped in a job just to provide coverage for their families, and would have the opportunity to pursue their dreams.”

What Carney is essentially saying is that it’s great that you’ll lose your job because now you can quit without worrying about obtaining health insurance. As Forbes wrote last week: “The White House’s apparently sincere belief—echoed by progressive pundits at MSNBC, The New Republic, and the L.A. Times—is that it’s a good thing for fewer Americans to be economically self-sufficient.”

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